This piece was the outcome of my Final Major Project for my Foundation at Central Saint Martins.
Named after a passage from Roland Barthes'
Camera Lucida, it was designed to compare the mechanical link between clocks and cameras with the theoretical link between time and photography.
This exhibit was very different for me. Much of my earlier works, though often three-dimensional, resulted in a photographic display. My aim throughout the last few months of my Foundation was to capture an environment, however I became somewhat frustrated with the limitations of capturing something in a photograph. I became less interested in capturing the ephemeral in a still, two-dimensional surface, and soon realised that what separated a photograph from the original place was the experience; the subjective nature of simply being in a place. I wanted to create something immersive, something that made the audience part of the environment. I became interested in one particular definition of the word ‘capture’ – to trap something. I wanted to seize an environment- large and with no boundaries- into a gallery, into a room. I wanted to create an experience.
Visiting Tacita Dean’s Film at the Tate Modern was a major turning point for me. I loved the emphasis on the physicality of the medium, the way the focus was placed on the film as an object, and not just as an intermediate agent. I went on to research Expanded Cinema, becoming increasingly interested in the principles behind every piece, and these are the themes I want to explore during my upcoming work.
